RIM: is a pheonix rising on Jan 30th ?

RIM have finally announced the date of their new software, Jan 30th. with devices being available to buy in February.

This is good news, because it means that we can finally see how this new OS will work in the marketplace.

There are a vast number of blackberry owners who are perfectly happy with the email centricity of their blackberry, however they are wanting the app goodness from android and iPhone, and it is expected that the new OS will provide that.

Certainly RIM are doing a _lot_ to encourage app developers to port, and from I’ve seen of the dev environment it is easy to use, well thought out, and powerful.

It’s based on HTML 5, and making this the native app platform is a stroke of genius, the apps will be better, faster, and more stable as a result.

The dev kit is online now, and there are funds to be had from RIM to develop, so for example if you put up an app, and the sales do not reach 10k in the first few months, then RIM will make up the shortfall (as long as you reached 1K in sales). That means an almost guaranteed 10k income, not a bad proposition for small start-ups.

So I am suggesting that the “radical new computing engine” as some are calling it, together with the better than average returns from Blackberry apps (and that is from during these bad days for RIM, then there is a good chance that a decent competitor to Android and iOS will emerge. You’ll notice I don’t add microsoft in there, as I do not see any evidence yet, that their proposition will take off. I suspect a windows 9, with a fixed interface will do it for them, but this is some time away.